Chapter 179: Showering the Sect With Sacred Gears
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In Shinto Heaven, Takamagahara, Quetzalcoatl sat under a cherry blossom tree, with gentle wind rustling the leaves, and ethereal light falling from the sky. She sat behind a table, with a massive Japanese castle standing not far from them, as the area filled with smokey mist, creating an otherworldly vibe.
A woman with white hair and golden eyes, adorning a kimono, sat behind the table, as she sipped herbal tea from a graceful tea cup. Quetzalcoatl had already finished her cup minutes prior, so she munched on an apple as she waited for the Goddess to reply to her earlier words. She also ignored the three Gods standing behind Amaterasu.
"So you are saying," Amaterasu gently put down her cup and looked at her fellow Chief God. "It was an unavoidable situation, and that he took action on his own?"
"Yes," Quetzalcoatl shrugged. "In the end, I could have chosen to back off but that wouldn't have stopped him. I could have also stopped him myself, but I'm not that type of person. He had my support till the very end."
"And you realize you brought Shinto down with yourself, by letting him run amok?" One of the three Gods behind Amaterasu, Ryūjin, a Dragon God of the Sea. That guy had beef with Quetzalcoatl for too long to count, so he was expressing his opinion when it wasn't needed. "It's not only Aztec's name he was carrying on his shoulders but Shinto's too. Shinto has been put against Indra's group because of his actions, so basically half of Vedas are our enemies. Are you or him going to take responsibility for this?"
Quetzalcoatl dropped the apple and sighed, looking at Ryujin with an annoyed glare. "Look, little guy, I'm the Dragon God of Warfare, and I had no reason to stop him. If I did try, he would have attacked me, and trust me when I say that my victory against him in that state was not guaranteed. What, did you guys not hear that he killed Surya with a single attack? Even I can't do that. A fight of that caliber wouldn't have ended before either of us died. Why would I take such a risk with him, whom I cherish?" she scoffed, leaning back in her chair. "Bunch of spineless pussies. If you don't like what Shinto is going through because of him, cut your ties with him. Aztec will be glad to receive him any time of the day."
"You, how dare you-!" Ryūjin shouted, drawing out the Katana on his waist, and one of the two other Gods beside him also did the same. Only Bishamonten stood with her arms crossed, unwilling to attack.
"That is enough." Amaterasu turned her head at Ryujin and immense pressure filled the realm. Ryujin flinched back instinctively and put his weapon down, lowering his head.
"I apologize…" he said, but Amaterasu didn't bother to look at him.
She turned to Quetzalcoatl and nodded. "I understand then, Kukulan." She bowed her head a little to pay respect; all to her followers' shock. She raised herself straight and looked at the Dragoness with a curious look, "What about his origin, though? I heard some speculate that he is… from the same world as the Goddess, since he was seen kneeling before her, and also called her 'my Goddess' – daring to go against an entire Pantheon just for her sake."
"He's not from another world," Quetzalcoatl crossed her arms, "From what he and the Goddess told me, they have met in their dreams before. As gods, we know how miraculous dreams can be, Great Red's main attribute is dream divinity as well. I think it's him, Great Red, who must have acted as a catalyst, either internationally or as an accident, to connect two worlds' dreams together. All the abilities Aqua showed from a young age were due to her guidance in his dreams."
"...." Amaterasu covered her mouth with her sleeves and frowned. "How trustworthy is this information? It sounds ridiculous, but plausible if Great Red is related to it."
Of course it was plausible; that was what they modeled this excuse to be. She wasn't the one who made it, the Empress of Mankind did. After healing Aqua, she left his room and came downstairs to tell them about this in particular. She put her trust in Quetzalcoatl and Serafall, and while Quku didn't know about the Satan, she herself had no problem monopolizing this information. So she was lying to all the Pantheons while keeping the truth for herself.
"It's one hundred and one percent true," she said seriously, her golden eyes spinning into action. "I've confirmed it with my Wisdom Eyes since even I couldn't let such a big incident go unverified."
"I see," Amaterasu didn't seem to fully believe it, but she seemed convinced for now. That was enough. Through Shinto, the news will spread to other Pantheons, and they will gobble down on it and then believe that a soul had entered this world from another world and gone unnoticed by them. Their arrogant self will rather choose to believe that Great Red was involved in this; and if they don't, they can go fact-check with the red dragon swimming through the void.
"If that's all, Lady Amaterasu," Quetzalcoatl stood up. "I shall take my leave. I need to pay a visit to my Aztec as well. Unlike Shinto, Aztec is going to celebrate how its young hero has caused such a stir around the world. See you later."
Quetzalcoatl basically implied that if Aztec and Shinto were two-parent and Aqua their child, Aztec was going to try its best to paint itself as the favorite parent. Her parting prideful grin sent the Dragon God of Sea into a trembling frenzy out of rage, while Amaterasu closed her eyes and sighed.
Even if Amaterasu wanted to show support to Aqua, the rest of her pantheon wasn't going to like it. They were old, arrogant deities who condemned Aqua's behavior. So this time around, it was Aztec who got one over Shinto.
****
After healing, I spent the next few days busy with plans and preparations. First of all, I started with preparing Ranefer's Iron Body like she wanted me to.
It was extremely painful and the probability of failure was higher due to her already being a powerhouse. But pain wasn't an issue when she enjoyed it and had a body that could regenerate endlessly. Thanks to having Pheonix blood in her veins, and Mana of Yang Attribute, I didn't have to grant her an additional Qi Pool to learn martial arts.
Yang Attribute was versatile like that, its Mana could easily be used as Qi. She was a lucky woman. I granted her the same Heatforged Iron Body; she had the Mana to be considered a Sage, but her body was stuck at Iron. This power system wasn't going to be useful for her, so I made a Body Martial Arts book just for her and gave it to her. It had 10 ranks, so it could be easily compared with my power system.
With that, I pushed her to the 5th Rank in three days; which was equivalent to Gold. Since she had the energy to be Sage, it was quite a fast progress. The next rank equivalent to the Lord advancements would take a bit more time, however.
Ah, and as for how I pushed her to the 5th Rank…
"M-mother…fucker…"
Ranefer cried on the floor, with her blood and other bodily fluids all over the place, her jaw displaced and her elbows the other way around. The gym was thrumming with heat energy, everything was melting and burning; if this wasn't an Instant Dungeon, the damage would have been financially stupid.
"You… you should have held back at least a little… you fucking… ugh~"
If the pain-loving masochist phoenix was cursing like that, I suppose I went out a bit too much today. Still, it worked out in the end. Beating her up to strengthen her body was the fastest way, it helped that she was into battle-sex; that made it entertaining for me too. Been a while since I did that.
She squirmed like a broken doll for fifteen minutes, and after that she was perfectly fine, jumping around on her feet with all her bones back to normal and her wounds all healed.
"I feel so strong~!" The same angry woman who was cursing me earlier now hugged me tightly, kissing me all over the place. "Come come, let's shower together~ Allow me to clean you up for giving me such a gift!"
Of course, I wasn't going to reject that.
****
My mother wasn't quite supportive of me spending so much time with Ranefer, but it was necessary. I needed her to be strong too if I wanted to win.
On top of that, I needed some others to win as well. She wasn't the only one I plan to focus on for the next few months. Tsubasa needs to grow stronger, for starters; since she was Nyxondra with sealed memories, she had powers that were sealed too. If I could awaken even a bit of that power, she could be a massive help in this.
Other than her, I'm confident I can raise Ruby to be immensely powerful as well. On top of that, I had awakened Kana's Sacred Gear, so she might be able to grow strong enough in record time to help me in this adventure. Shoko had potential too.
In general, my entire Sect had the potential to grow immensely powerful, and I was all for raising them to be stars that would overshadow the sun. It just so happened that, on top of upgrading their current powers, I had pieces of equipment in my hand that could grant them new abilities too.
The Sacred Gears I scavenged from the now-deceased Hero Faction. Although I had killed them effortlessly, their gears were undeniably powerful. In total, I had eight Sacred Gears on hand, ready to deploy.
[True Longinus: The sacred gear formerly belonging to Cao Cao, which was his main weapon. It's the first and the strongest Longinus Sacred Gear, being the same spear St. Longinus used to pierce Jesus Christ, bathing in his blood. It can piece Gods and Buddhas, shaving off their power and split powerful attacks, and holding the potential to destroy the world. As the holiest relic, believers can be driven insane looking at it, and vaporize High-Class Devils and also damage Satan-Class Devils. Despite being a spear, it can release powerful light blasts and wrap its aura around its blast; extend and retract based on the user's will; and shield the user from attacks.]
[Dimension Lost: It was Georg's Sacred Gear, which is listed among the top four Longinus'. It has the ability to block any attack using the mist that it creates and transport anything inside the mist to any location the user wishes. Though it has no offensive ability, once the mist reaches sufficient scale, it can transfer an entire country and its people into the Dimensional Gap to be destroyed.]
[Blade Blacksmith: It was Jeanne's Sacred Gear, holding the ability to create an arsenal of numerous Holy Swords of different attributes and abilities. Jeanne can also create the blades of these swords on any surface within her limited area.]
[Variant Detonation: This one used to be Heracles' Sacred Gear that builds up a glowing aura around the wielder's body that has the ability to explode the same time its wielder physically attacks.]
[Aegis Mineralization – also known as Order of Death from the Snake Queen: It was Perseus' Sacred Gear, which has the ability to fire beams of light that turn people to stone.]
[Phantom Projection: It was Marsilio's Sacred Gear, and is stated to be a time and space Sacred Gear. Now Dreamlike Curse's Balance Breaker is called "An Illusion Forever Wrapped". It has the ability to send a targeted individual into a barrier space of the user's creation, which is a seemingly parallel world; that the user can control and also change a person's perception of time to make several hours appear as 2 whole days and block people from using their powers to a certain degree.]
[Caliburn: Arthur Pendragon's main weapon that I had stolen and used to slay Surya. It is the ultimate Holy Sword and the Sword in the Stone. The Caliburn can generate an extremely massive amount of Holy aura that surpasses even that of Excalibur and Durandal and is capable of ripping through space. The user can also use Caliburn to teleport himself or others to any location and can even open small spatial portals to teleport its blade to strike enemies from any direction unexpectedly.]
[Excalibur Ruler: It was a weapon that Arthur kept on his belt but never got to withdraw. It was the strongest of the seven Excalibur fragments. It grants its wielder the power to manipulate any living thing or organic material, allowing them to control the will of their opponents and fully subjugate them.]
Each of these was an insanely powerful ability; I got to read all about them with the Reverse Soul Reflection. I was a little stunned seeing them, even.
The True Lognius even gave its user a defensive ability, and here I thought Cao Cao had no defensive power while in truth he just didn't get a chance to use that.
As expected, if I hadn't tapped into my Eternal Sorcery, things could have turned bad. Each member was as strong as a high-ranked God, I would say. Thankfully I was moving faster than light with the help of the Time Icon, so the majority of these weapons' abilities didn't even get a chance to shine.
I also distinctly remember Leonardo, the wielder of Annihilation Maker, as well as Siegfried, the wielder of Twice Critical to be a part of the Hero Faction from the DxD anime. But I didn't see them with the team here, and from Quetzalcoatl I confirmed that they left the Hero Faction a while ago. Such a pity, I'd have loved to kill them. Those two Sacred Gears were incredibly powerful, especially the former; it's so good that I'd have loved to have it for myself.
Currently, putting aside the tiger cubs and Rias' Peerage, I have thought of seven members of my Sect who'd benefit from these. Ai, Ruby, Tsubasa, Memmy, Irina, Xenovia, and Kalawarna. There were also Uncle Ichigo and Aunty Miyako, but they were Sect Elders who weren't active when they didn't need to be. Shoko had a Sacred Gear already, and Asia and Yuzuru were also kept aside for this. Seven members for eight Sacred Gears; I took my time to choose which I should give to whom.
When I had made up my mind, I called them over and sat in the living room. My cute little Goddess sat on the couch, while we sat on the floor in a circle, having moved the table to another spot to make space.
The room was humming with whispers and curiosity, and after letting them guess for a bit why I summoned them, I cleared my throat. "Calm down for a moment, guys," I said and they turned to look at me. "I have summoned you to grant you some abilities that I've gathered. And my Goddess here, with her divine powers, will help you make the abilities your own."
I couldn't just hand the gears to them, I'd need someone of great Divine Authority to set it up properly. Thankfully, I had her here.
"To start," I looked at Ai, the most senior among the members, "I'll grant my mother a Sacred Gear. Aegis Mineralization," I said, "It turns people to stone from the beams of light the user releases. Like Medusa." Recalling the first time Ai used her Wardrobe ability to turn into the snake lady she had acted as once, this was quite fitting.
Ai blinked, as everyone turned to look at her. I approached my Goddess and took out a blue, glowing light. It was a particle of Aura, it wasn't a physical Gear like most of the others. I gently handed her it, and she looked at it.
"If you'd please bless her with this power, my Goddess," I said, and she smiled.
"Sure. I can do that." She raised her head and looked at Ai, closing her eyes briefly before opening them with a golden light shining out of her eyes.
"Uh, hey, what about my consent…? I want a better power…" Ai complained, but this was the best for her. The others would suit the other girls.
Galaxara floated upward, her figure radiating authority, causing the wind to stir around the room, as she pointed a finger at Ai. Her voice boomed like a drum, "I, as the Great Goddess, bless you, my child, for you to adorn this power and make it into your own. May the light be with you."
The blue light floated in front of her palm and shot forward, entering Ai's head just as a blast of light shot out of her eye sockets. I stepped in front of her, for the light to hit me alone, as my Sage's Authority broke down the beam when it touched my skin, rather than turning me into stone.
"Close your eyes," I put a hand over her head and she did that. "Good. You have heat vision already, so you should know how to control it. Take a deep breath and open your eyes again."
She grumbled and cursed me for being too hasty, before opening her eyes and letting out a sigh. No light came out this time. She raised her head and scowled at me. "Brat."
"You're already used to it, be grateful," I ruffled her hair, causing her eyes to twitch, and before she could retaliate, I walked back to my Goddess who fell on her butt on the couch with a relaxed look on her face.
"Who's next?" she asked, and I turned my head to look at the girls.
One by one, I granted them abilities that they could rule the world with.
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